Southeast Toyota Distributors has expanded its 15-year data relationship with data and technology company Acxiom, and the result will help Southeast Toyota Distributors better understand its customers and prospects, have meaningful conversations with them and lower the company’s cost of acquisition while improving conversion.

Southeast Toyota Distributors, which describes itself as the world’s largest independent distributor of Toyotas, will use Acxiom’s Unified Data Layer (UDL) framework to power its marketing platform at the data layer. Southeast Toyota Distributors hopes that creates a unified and privacy-compliant view of its customers and prospects across channels while connecting its Martech and Adtech ecosystems.

Acxiom said in a news release that in the current “digitally disrupted” landscape, the path to auto purchase has changed. Although consumers still visit dealerships, online research, reviews and comparison are included in their path to purchase.

But with all of the landscape change, people still appreciate “good service, relevance and being heard,” Acxiom said. That is important to customer relationship management, but it also means the seller should recognize and understand the customer digitally and offline. That will help bring a frictionless, easy buying experience and a satisfying ownership experience, according to Acxiom.

More data is available than ever before, and at the same time, customer expectations are higher than ever. But because the data explosion also comes with tougher regulations, harnessing data and empowering the available marketing technology is not easy. The Southeast Toyota Marketing Platform is powered by Acxiom’s UDL framework and IdentityBuilder, and Acxiom says it will connect the distributor’s relevant data across channels and technologies. That will help the distributor better understand its customers and prospects, according to Acxiom, and that means more meaningful engagement wherever and whenever they connect.

The platform includes a data environment for customers and leads data. Also through the platform, dealers can verify the customer information that Acxiom says is important to delivering a strong experience for customers. In addition, to optimize its marketing campaigns, Southeast Toyota Distributors will also now be able to connect digital data with offline data. Also included in the Southeast Toyota Marketing Platform is an analytics data mart that allows the company to explore and fine-tune its up-sell, loyalty and new customer targeting strategies.

“Southeast Toyota Distributors has been on a digital transformation journey to better enable a seamless experience to our existing customers and those considering a purchase,” Southeast Toyota Distributors director of customer journey Sheri Gosselin said in a news release.

She continued, “The Acxiom solution allows us to bring together all of our data and existing marketing and advertising technologies, like our onboarding provider, campaign management tool and DMP, into one activation center that has privacy-compliance built in. We’re able to continue to build on our capabilities without replacing things that are working well.”

“Expanding our 15-year relationship with Southeast Toyota Distributors is both rewarding and exciting,” Acxiom vice president, strategic growth Steve Letourneau said.

“The innovation we’ve achieved with our Unified Data Layer framework is particularly meaningful when a long-time client recognizes additional value Acxiom can bring to their marketing efforts,” Letourneau said. “Acxiom has gained a lot of traction with UDL; from the launch of our UDL framework, we have successfully implemented 20 UDL solutions, and the UDL won a BIG Innovation Award presented by the Business Intelligence Group earlier this year. We are thrilled to bring this capability, along with our experience in identity resolution and expertise in ethical use of data, to our valued partners at Southeast Toyota Distributors, enabling them to navigate this disrupted digital landscape with relevance and respect, so every customer journey is a memorable one.”

“Customer centricity begins with getting your data, and your data strategy, right,” Acxiom chief technology officer Chris Lanaux said.

Lanaux added, “Acxiom’s UDL framework unifies data across channels and enterprise silos to deliver a holistic view of each customer, applying the necessary privacy governance through its privacy-by-design approach, while managing increasing complexity and delivering faster speed to value at lower cost. The solutions we implement utilize cloud-based architecture, allowing us to easily plug into our clients’ existing Martech and Adtech stacks, reducing rip and replace costs and accelerating the orchestration of data for key use cases.”